For my father

Over the past several months I have had to write posts mourning the passing of many people. Horror heavyweights such as Wes Craven, Christopher Lee and Gunnar Hansen. Not people I knew personally. It would be extremely idiotic of me to assume that any of that would prepare me to write about the passing of my own father, because it doesn’t. A personal loss is a personal loss and it is an incredibly difficult thing to put into words. You can write about the kind of person they were and the memories that remain, and those things should not be invalidated. They’re important. But they’re also something totally separate from the loss itself and the way that it feels.

There’s no one way to talk about it, and that’s part of what makes it so hard. My dad lived all over the country, made friends easily, there are a lot of people who are dealing with the fact that he is no longer here. Everyone deals with it in a different way. If I’m going to be honest (and there’s probably no better place to be honest than here) I’ve been worried about how I’m dealing with it. There are moments when it hits me, other times when I’m not thinking about it at all and then I get worried that the reality of it has not yet sunk in. A lot of that is me worrying, some of it is probably true.

It’s hard for me to think of him as gone. Just one year ago today, I was camping out with him in the Everglades, bonding for what I could almost feel was an impending final time, but something I didn’t really want to think about. His illness came on so suddenly and took him out so quickly, it’s almost impossible to process. I take comfort in the fact that I think I am handling it the best that I can. Sometimes it hurts to think about and sometimes I don’t think about him at all and ultimately both are probably important to the grief process.

In two days, though, he’ll have been dead a month. It’s hard not to think about that. I’m not writing this to say I need sympathy, because I don’t and I already have more than I know what to do with. I’m very, very grateful that people are concerned and that he touched so many lives. I’ve spoken to many people who have been a great help. Just talking about these things is important. The thing that’s been said to me that stuck out the most, though, was, “I’m seventy-nine years old and I still miss my parents.”

That’s a jarring thing to hear. In part because I’m only twenty-six, but it also makes it easier. It lets me know that I’m not going to forget him and that I shouldn’t try. Still, it’s more than that. I feel things very deeply, probably a part of being a writer. Even if this whole experience is not a positive one, I don’t want to forget the way I feel thinking about it. I want to remember all of this. It’s a resource, in a way, and not just as a writer. Any pain now will only help me later. Sure, I’m going about my day-to-day life, thinking more about the memories and less about the loss. But if that switches, I’m still going to take it as a good thing. He’s still been gone less than a month.

My father was a passionate, intelligent man who was beloved by many. While he was very opinionated, he didn’t have many enemies. He could get along with anybody, even if he didn’t agree with him, a quality of his that I don’t think was properly admired. Donald Brehmer was a born wanderer, nomadic in nature, always restless and looking to whatever was coming next.

I loved my dad. I’m never going to not know him and I’m grateful, knowing that so many people who have rocky relationships with their parents, to take comfort in the fact that we always knew where we stood with one another. We didn’t talk all the time, but he was always there if I needed him. I’m going to miss him forever, and that’s a good thing. It means we had a relationship that I would not have changed for a second, and that I will always be grateful for.